Cover Story
HAMPIONING individual of Liberty’s top post holders.
freedom in a post 9:11 The petite former Home Office
Liberty director
C
world where truth and lawyer and Master of the Bench of
justice are also victims of the Middle Temple has made two
Shami Chakrabarti
suspicion, can be a lonely guest appearances on Have I Got
and thankless task – but Shami News For You, is a regular on
sees her role as
Chakrabarti has never run away Question Time, become a judge of
from a challenge. the Orange Prize for New Fiction,
the conscience of
These challenges are manifold and has just been installed as the
and include fighting torture and new Chancellor at Oxford Brookes
a society that
extraordinary rendition overseas, University in Oxford – as well as
and, closer to home, opposing over- holding down the day job.
increasingly wants
surveillance ‘informal law But Chakrabarti, who last year
enforcement’ and vigilante picked up a CBE, has an innate
to control and
databases set up by retailers ability to cram a quart into a pint
because they don’t feel that law pot.
compartmentalise.
enforcement agencies take business Retail Fraud was granted a half
crime seriously enough. an hour interview with her at
Retailers, like the
Chakrabarti became the director Liberty’s diminutive offices in South
of Liberty, the UK’s leading human London to discuss her views on
Governments she
rights organisation two years after consumer human rights and retail’s
the collapse of the second Trade creeping technological advances
stands up to, see
Centre tower when the dust that that had the potential to spy on
had settled upon New York had shoppers and store customer and
themselves as at
come to symbolise a new world employee data. Instead, the
order of smothering suspicion and interview lasted almost an hour and
war with criminals
creeping paranoia that she and her a half because each eloquent point
organisation have been fighting was painstakingly backed up with
but, she argues,
around every street corner ever examples and fascinating insights
since. into her life as a campaigner,
individual
In such an atmosphere of advocate, working mother and
mainstream fear and the War on wife. The interview continued
freedoms are not
Terror, it would have been easy to despite the best efforts of
opt for a quiet tenure and go with Chakrabarti’s people who had
negotiable or to be
the flow of populist hysteria. But scheduled a number of other
that is not what Liberty under meetings for her during the day.
seen as legitimate
Chakrabarti’s stewardship is about. “I am a very organised person – I
The organisation, also known as think I am like most working
collateral damage
the National Council for Civil
Liberties, is a cross, yet non-party
membership organisation founded
“I AM A VERY
in 1934 with the sole mission of
protecting and promoting human ORGANISED PERSON
rights and dignity in a democratic
society.
– I THINK I AM LIKE
Chakrabarti knew that in the post
MOST WORKING
9:11 West, Liberty’s time had once
again arrived, as much so as it had
MOTHERS WHO HAVE
at its inception during Europe’s
darkest years leading up to World TO BE ORGANISED
War II.
So it was time to turn on the
AND HAVE A DIARY
‘Shami Offensive’ – a reaching out
THAT WORKS. I HAVE
to the mainstream of UK society
and daring to argue that the our
A VERY SUPPORTIVE
fears as citizens may be as
groundless as ‘Ground Zero.’
HUSBAND AS WELL
Chakrabarti was consequently
catapulted into a world where she
WITHOUT WHOM THIS
is never far away from the
WOULD NOT BE
Shami headlines – good and bad – and she
Chakrabarti has become the most media savvy POSSIBLE”
ISSUE 2 SEPTEMBER 2008 • 15
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